ATD 525-556

Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.

Page 525

Boulevard van Isenghem
???

street-plausible
???

Quai de l'empereur
???

estaminet
???

twelve-centime
???

Kellner
German: waiter, barman. Use of the German word would be insulting to the Belgian barman.

demi
???

Lambic
Pron. lahm-BEEK. Unique Belgian beer style, sour and often thin in body.

skimmer
???

Page 526

universal sign
Cf Monopoly game card.

biquaternion
???

Barry Nebulay
Pun on a term from heraldry, barry nebuly. Barry (pron. BAR-ree, not like the name) refers to a shield divided into an even number of parts by horizontal lines. Nebuly signals that the lines are deformed into stylized "cloud" shapes. Here you can see an example. If a British author had a character with a heraldic name, it would suggest a pseudonym.

University of Dublin
If University College, Dublin, then Joyce had graduated in 1902.

Tasmania
???

Hamiltonian devotees
The Quaternion faction, after William Hamilton, who devised the scheme.

Grand Hôtel de la Nouvelle Digue
???

Belgian Art Nouveau
???

Page 527

dossing
British slang for "sleeping", "staying overnight"

Russian nihilists

Eugénie, Fatou
Females.

Denis, and Policarpe
Males.

Young Congo
Probably in reference to the Young Turks, a Turkish revolutionary movement

Garde Civique
A part of the Belgian army. According to the 1911 Britannica, "the mass of the garde civique does not pretend to possess military value. It is a defence against sedition and socialism."

phalange
???

the Digue
French for "dyke"

Congo... Belgians
The Belgian colonisation of the Congo was, as Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" makes clear, notable for its greed and brutality.

co-conscious
???

Force Publique
Belgian armed forces operating in the Belgian Congo (Wikipedia)

rubber worker
See above: One of the early missions of the FP was to increase rubber export quotas through forced labor and related atrocities.

Page 528

khâgne
???

Reclus
???

Stirnerite
Follower of Max Stirner, 19th century German philosopher and author of The Ego and Its Own, a work influential in anarchist thought. Wikipedia entry.

Anarcho-individualiste
???

Leopold
???

going down lately
???

Sipido
???

Prince... of Wales
(Maud Gonne's husband claimed to have been involved in another such plot.)

Royal Bathing Hut... twenty francs
???

twenty francs
???

Page 529

''picric
???

Brugère's powder
???

Designolle's
???

Monsieur Santos-Dumont
???

Green Hour and l'heure vertigineuse
Absinthe-drinking time. The liqueur is green. In French, l'heure verte, so vertigineuse (vertiginous, causing dizziness) is a pun on the word for "green."

Rocco and Pino
???

Whitehead works in Fiume
Anticipating GR's V2 works.

Alberta
???

Siluro Dirigible a Lenta Corsa
or S.L.C. "slow course torpedo", "slow-running torpedo". Wikipedia Italy‘s Navy was among the first to experiment with manned torpedos. Though according to this site this did not happen until 1935, Italian frogmen as early as October 31, 1918 made it into the harbour of Pula with the help of a modified german torpedo and sank the former Austrian but by then since a few hours Croatian/Slovenian/Bosnian battleship SMS Viribus Unitis. website

Page 530

exfiltrate
???

Macchè
???

Ehi, stugazz', categoria
???

mezzogiornismo
???

Page 531

Bruges
An exceptionally beautiful Belgian town of canals which is thus one of several towns known as the 'Venice of the north'.

Raoul's Atelier de la Vitesse
French: Ralph's Speed Shop.

Ghent
???

Daimler six-cylinder
???

a hundred horsepower
???

guaglion
???

Umeki Tsurigane
???

Professor Knott
???

Page 532

drover's sombrero
???

furoshiki
???

taupe
???

boilermakers and their helpers
???

Comptes rendus
???

Page 533

aniline teal
???

Heavisiders
???

Grassmanniacs
???

in the mood for a clambake
Anachronistic Broadway show tune?

Monopole de la Maison
???

Idiom Neutral
An invented language, like Esperanto. Idiom Neutral dictionaries first appeard in 1902. It looks like a simplified Latinate language and it grew out of Volapuk, another "auxiliary language." It was abandoned by the Akademi Internasional de Lingu Universal in 1908.

For a list of all the invented languages that linguists are keeping track of, including Klingon, try Eastern Michigan's Linguist List. And don't forget to click on the link to "Browse sites devoted to constructed languages."

phatic
Basically, small talk or chatter. Words used to convey fellow-feeling rather than to impart information.

Kampf ums Dasein
German: struggle for existence.

Q-brother
"My fellow Quaternion"?

Page 534

Poiret gown
???

green and long
Pickle, or... what?

Page 535

no-name wine
1970s idiom for common European practice?

Hamilton... first love
???

Page 536

Kursaal
???

Curls
???

Laplacians
???

scream
Scream motif.

beginning to appal
???

baize
???

Page 537

broken symmetries
???

sphinxe Khnopffienne
???

Pléiade Lafrisée
???

Conseilleuse
Female consultant?

Page 538

retroversion matrix
???

Ma foi
???

ten thousand francs
???

piker
Someone cheap or cautious, possibly named after people from PIke County, Missouri, who came to California in the 1800s, looking for work. They were poor, hence cheap.

'Mad Dog'
???

Hegel... puns
???

Page 539

vector quotient
???

'Triangle Asana'
A basic yoga pose.

Here are images of several basic poses.

'Quadrantal Versor Asana'
A triangle pose taken that extra dimension.

"Uwe moer!"
???

noncommutative
???

reticule
???

Vacheron & Constantin watch
???

hunting-case
???

Page 540

"haar rekening, ja?"
The bill, yes? (Dutch)?

Her bill, yes? I.e., give the check to the lady.

Given the presence of Chris 'Kit' Traverse here, this very much suggests a reference to Christopher 'Kit' Marlowe, Elizabethan poet, playwright and contemporary of Shakespeare. Marlowe was stabbed to death in 1593, in murky circumstances, ostensibly over a bill or 'recokning', though he was widely believed to have been involved in some form of espionage.

Piet Woevre
Pete Weaver?

made him reach
(Cf Ezra Pound?)

not unambiguous
Ie, ambiguous.

rastaquoueres
8???

de Decker
In Dutch/Flemish, the name means "roofer." (De in these names almost never means "of, from" as in French; it's nearly always the definite article.)

Page 541

bobbejaan
???

MKIV/ODC... Mark Four
???

your remit
???

gatkruiper
Dutch/Flemish: brownnose, ass-kisser.

one on her wrist
???

over the day
Title motif?

Page 542

trans-horizontic
???

Edmund Whittaker
???

foaming louche
???

cheval-glass
???

as if someone
Sound-cancelling vs opacity-cancelling?

Page 543

monitory
???

He Who Must Come
???

General Boulanger
Georges Boulanger, French War Minister urging an attack on Germany

"Zeker"
Dutch, "certainly"

dead cert
Dead certainty, sure thing.

Von Schlieffen
Alfred von Schlieffen was the author of a German war plan to win a two-front war against both France and Russia by quickly defeating France before Russina troops could be mobilized. The Schlieffen Plan included an attack on France through Belgium, disregarding its neutrality.

Wilhelm has offered
???

lowlands
Title of Pynchon's first published story. Here, ass?

Page 544

Place d'Armes
???

peau de soie
???

Krafft-Ebing
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing, Austro-German psychiatrist and author of Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), a pioneering study of deviant sexual behavior and fetishism. Coined both sadism and masochism as terms for these respective behaviors. Wikipedia entry.

toque
A chef's hat

guipure
???

midinette
???

sous
???

mayonnaise
One of Brautigan's books famously ends with the word mayonnaise.

ovoöleaginous
Another Pynchonic word combination, here denoting the two main ingredients of mayonnaise: 1) eggs, and 2) oil. It's not "fecoventilatory collision" as seen in "Vineland," but it's nice.

Grenache
???

Chantilly
???

attainder
???

'Aux armes, citoyens'
Not "Le Marseillaise," you nitwit!

Louis XV
???

Cléo de Mérode
???

marquise de Pompadour
???

Page 545

dubious 'victory' in 1756
???

cantharides
"Spanish fly," contact irritant sometimes ill-advisedly used as aphrodisiac.

Sadean
Pertaining to the Marquis de Sade. The acts the chef performs on the egg and oil have the same names as acts of Sadean sex.

vetiver
???

pip
???

Q.P. system
Quaternion Probability, p?.

Usine Régionale
French: as translated in the text.

Page 546

lounge suit
???

congress shoes
???

dripping-heads
???

cuves d'agitation
???

Clinique d'Urgence pour Sauvetage des Sauces
???

Page 547

Cazzo, cretino
Literally, "Dick, cretin." Cazzo is a common Italian interjectionary obscenity, especially in the south. "Cazzo, cretino," is akin to someone saying, "Well shit, dummy," or "F-ing moron!"

bambole
???

Oudenberg
???

Quai de l'Entrepôt
???

Page 548

timbres fictifs
Cf "Lot 49".

"IIIb"
???

revanchist
???

Page 549

cackled Darby
(When did he lose his innocence?)

"Why you little–and I do mean 'little'–"
Another Simpsons reference?

dunes between Nieuport and Dunkirk
???

power-receivers
Not information, energy.

Page 550

Italian grotto
???

Carpathians
???

Uhlans
Uhlan regiments belonged to the light cavalry. They wore splendid uniforms (model for some U.S. marching band uniforms). Wikipedia article.

Temesvár
???

Page 551

Ryder Thorn
Tolkienesque name?

He was at Candlebrow.
(Was he?)

Page 552

knuckle-duster
Brass knuckles.

Diksmuide
???

Page 553

retted
???

Page 554

Ypres and Menin
Municipalities in West Flanders that were sites of some of the bloodiest battles of WWI.

Ten years from now
(1914?)

Bosch
Hieronymous Bosch (1450-1516), Dutch painter of nightmares. Wikipedia entry.

Brueghel
Pieter Brueghel the Elder(1525-1569), Flemish painter.Wikipedia entry.

League
League of Nations?

Page 555

simpletons at the fair
Making Pynchon's metaphor explicit.

Chopin E-minor Nocturne
???

owl-light
???

'plasmic hysteresis'
???

Annotation Index

Part One: The Light Over the Ranges	1-25, 26-56, 57-80, 81-96, 97-118
Part Two: Iceland Spar	119-148, 149-170, 171-198, 199-218, 219-242, 243-272, 273-295, 296-317, 318-335, 336-357, 358-373, 374-396, 397-428
Part Three: Bilocations	429-459, 460-488, 489-524, 525-556, 557-587, 588-614, 615-643, 644-677, 678-694
Part Four: Against the Day	695-723, 724-747, 748-767, 768-791, 792-820, 821-848, 849-863, 864-891, 892-918, 919-945, 946-975, 976-999, 1000-1017, 1018-1039, 1040-1062
Part Five: Rue du Départ	1063-1085